Housing starts, led mostly by the multi-family sector, rose to their highest level in 19 months to 685,000 units, or far better than the annual rate of 630,000 projected by surveyed economists. From a story in the Wall Street Journal:
Home construction last month increased 9.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 685,000 from October, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The results were better than forecast. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected housing starts would rise by 0.3% to an annual rate of 630,000.
The increase in November was driven by a 25.3% increase in multi-family homes with at least two units, a volatile part of the market. Construction of single-family homes, which made up about 65% percent of the market, rose only 2.3%
Compared with the same month a year earlier, overall new-home starts in November were up 24.3%. They were still well below healthy levels, considered to be a pace of around 1 million to 1.5 million.
The Commerce data showed newly issued building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 5.7% from a month earlier to an annual rate of 681,000, the highest since March 2010. Permits in November had been projected to fall 1.7% to an annual rate of 633,000.
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